Lois Battle Books

General Fiction Large Print Edition A literate, witty, and affectionate tale that s perfect to curl up with at home, or better yet, in a B & B.

From turn-of-the-century New Orleans, a city renowned for sin, seduction, and sex, comes a tale of two women inextricably linked by "The District" of Storyville, where prostitution was legal—and flourishing.Kate—young, beautiful, and abandoned by a man who doesn't love her—finds herself thrown on the mercies of the city. Julia Randsome is a transplanted Yankee, a supporter of women's rights, who against everyone's advice marries into one of the city's most prominent families. Though they occupy different universes in New Orleans, somehow all roads bring Kate and Julia to the same place . . . back to The District.As lush and provocative as New Orleans is itself, Storyville sweeps across lines of caste and blood, money, and desire—and into the voluptuous secrets of a city tempting as any on earth."The novel's atmosphere is redolent of honeysuckle and jasmine, café brûlot and cinnamon buns."— Newsday

"Welcome to Florabama, Alabama. Off the main highway and down the dirt roads, small plots of cotton and soy flank brighter crops of jonquil and daffodil. You can sip a Co'cola or iced tea and think about money and love. Money and love. If you had 'em, you were free to think about other things. If you didn't, you couldn't think about anything else. And the latter couldn't be more true for Hilly Pruitt.". ""We've been screwed blue and tattooed," quips Holly upon hearing the news of the closing of Cherished Lady, the local lingerie factory. Hilly, along with many other women in Florabama, has been relying on the factory for her livelihood for years. As Hilly always says, "Life is like a dogsled: if you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes."". "The same day the plant closes, Bonnie Duke Cullman begins her drive through a Gulf Coast storm to the first real job of her life. Her children are in college and her country club and charity committee existence has come to an end as abruptly as her marriage. In short, like the women of Cherished Lady, she's been downsized. But luckily for Bonnie, she does have a job to go to: she's been hired to run the Displaced Homemakers Program for a podunk community college where the ex-bra seamstresses of Cherished Lady await her wisdom."--BOOK JACKET.

Die verwitwete Josie Taternall freut sich auf den Besuch ihrer Töchter zu Weihnachten. Es ist das erste Familientreffen in ihrer Heimatstadt in den Südstaaten seit 10 Jahren, doch alte Probleme und Missverständnisse erwachen erneut.

Bonnie geht in das kleine Südstaatennest Florabama, um ihre Vergangenheit hinter sich zu lassen. Am örtlichen College betreut sie die gerade arbeitslos gewordenen Näherinnen der geschlossenen Dessousfabrik.